Handguns that are carried by police and military are carried in holsters that are externally worn and that have varying degrees of security levels depending primarily upon on the intended context of use. Such holsters are formed of rigid polymers and cover most of the handgun frame, most or all of the slide portion, and usually all of the trigger guard of the handgun while leaving the hand grip exposed for grasping. The majority of such holsters for the police and military are worn adjacent to the left or right hip depending on whether the user is left or right handed and are worn with the handgun pointing downward when the user is standing. Such holsters have a polymer wall portions including a proximal wall portion adjacent to the user, a distal wall portion opposite from the proximal wall portion. The holsters typically have at least one finger operated release mechanism, operated by the thumb or fore finger, that releases a movable stop member that releasably engages either the ejection proximal or trigger guard of the handgun.
Conventional handguns have a sight with a post as a forward sight and a sight with a rear open sight with a V or U shaped notch to which the post is aligned for aiming. Such sights extend upward nominally from a handgun slide, typically one fourth or three eighths of an inch. Semi-automatic handguns generally always come with such sights attached. These sights are often called “iron sights” although they are usually not made of iron. Conventional holsters are designed to accommodate such conventional iron sights.
Weapon-mounted handgun accessories have become an important tool for military, police, and civilian firearm users. A number of weapon-mounted firearm accessories can be used to facilitate aiming the weapon. Examples of popular firearm accessories include targeting devices, such as laser sighting devices, and target illuminators, such as flashlights.
One type of sighting device that has seen increasing popularity in recent years is the type of the sighting device general referred to in the art as a reflector sight, a reflex sight, and/or a red dot sight. This type of gunsight is an optical device that allows the user to look through a partially reflecting glass element and see an illuminated projection of an aiming point or reticle superimposed on the field of view. More recently, these sighting devices have been designed for mounting on the top of handguns, for example, on the slide.
Holsters have traditionally been designed with form factors quite close to the specific handgun and with the main holster enclosure formed of a single molded part. This contributes to the robustness and integrity of the holster when needed for holding and securely retaining the handgun in demanding situations. In that holsters are injection molded, it may be required to have a separate mold for a holster design for each different handgun. Also, holster designs for a left handed person will need to be modified for a right handed person, again requiring a new mold. To the extent an accessory is to be mounted on the handgun, a new holster design and correspondingly a new mold is typically needed to accommodate the accessory. Molds for injection molding are expensive. In that such handgun mounted accessories may not be permanent fixtures on a user's handgun, the user may then requires two holsters if they plan on carrying their handgun with and without the accessory.
Any improvement for reducing manufacturing costs, reducing the number of holsters needed by handgun users, without reducing the integrity and robustness of the holster, and thereby reducing the ultimate cost to the user, would be welcomed.